Oh, this is a fun one! We’ve got Matt, MC for hip hop group, Spekulation on one mic and wife, Ashley, a talented printmaker on the other. Together, they’re self-confessed control freaks (their words, not ours), late night gamers, and the best hosts for backyard movie parties. Their wedding was a true “love-fest, family reunion, raucous party, group hug” that we can’t wait for you to see!

My dress was from David’s Bridal, and bought off a clearance rack for $150 (score!). It was the wedding dress I never knew I always wanted and I loved it. During the ceremony I wore Enzo Angiolini pumps from Nordstrom and then quickly changed into all white Nike Air Force Ones for the reception.

We wanted something unique and true to our style for our invitations and knew that we were capable of making them, so we ended up designing and screenprinting them ourselves. I’ve been pretty obsessed with all things cardboard since I was a kid and the thought of actually having cardboard invitations blew my mind. I had to make it happen but printing on cardboard would require more than a few trips to Kinkos. We bought huge sheets of cardboard from an art supply store and cut them down to size. All the other paper for direction cards/ thank you cards/ etc. and envelopes came from Paper Zone and were printed at home or at Kinkos. No more than $100 total.

We love that Ashley + Matt gave their wedding party free reign over what to wear. Just give a little guidance by suggesting they stick to your color palette and they’ll come looking amazing (and feeling comfortable in their own style)!

For favors we screen printed 200 cloth dish towels that we found at Ikea for 47 cents each with the Outcast lyrics “forever ever, ever ever”. This was one of my fav DIY projects because we made them while watching Star Wars (a prerequisite for me to watch them all for the first time before we married). They were exactly what we were looking for and were a huge hit, not to mention functional.As for our seating chart. I covered a cork board with a solid piece of fabric and pinned little paper banners with each guests’ name.

Matt really wanted our first dance to be “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King and I really wanted Lauren Hill’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”. In the end we danced to Lauren, but I surprised him by walking down the aisle to “Stand By Me”. The smile on his face was something I will never forget. As we exited, the band played the theme song to Legend of Zelda. (Oh, did we mention they’re huge gamers?)

Listen to their first dance song here:

Handmade origami fortune tellers were placed at each setting with prompts like “challenge someone to an arm wrestling match”, or “initiate a game of duck duck goose” to get people talking and playing.

Ok, seriously. How fun would it be to have a game of Jenga going on during a reception, or a little wrestling match? For roughly $300, they purchased classic board games and used them as their centerpieces. High-five guys, that’s a winning idea!

We spy Gone Fishin’ behind that cute little table number! Ashley bought 25 vintage glass teacups, painted the insides white, filled them with grass from Home Depot and stuck tiny chalkboard garden markers in them. Such a cute project only ran them $40.

Music was a HUGE part of our wedding and the perfect flow and energy of the night can be credited 100% to the hours Matt spent on all the playlists. Matt and his mom danced to “As” by Stevie Wonder right after us, and as it got faster and funkier, the crowd got more and more riled up and it perfectly kicked off the crazy dance party. We played everything from The Temptations to Biggie, and I kid you not, the dance floor was packed the entire night. There was no better night to dance like a maniac than on your wedding day, and that’s exactly what I did.

Well you two, we honestly adore your wedding and thank you for allowing us to share it with our Cakelets. We’re definitely feeling the incredible amounts of love and fun oozing from each photo! Congrats!

Aww, yay for fun weddings! I know everyone says that they want their wedding to be true to them, but even as a casual spectator I can really feel that Ashley and Matt truly accomplished that and made it fun for all. Congrats to the happy couple!

My husband and I were married in April of 2010, we had a small wedding, 24 total. We played games after dinner/cake (none of our guests, us included are big dancers)…one big group game to get everyone involved. We had separate tables set up in the rear of our venue with games on the tables.

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